


Kitchenette

by purplepigeon



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Cooking, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, mild swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 09:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19391167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplepigeon/pseuds/purplepigeon
Summary: Aziraphale didn't expect to have a bad day. He also didn't expect to have that sour mood turned completely on its head in an instant.





	Kitchenette

A Brit walked down the busy city streets of London, grey clouds floating menacingly in the sky. The day was coming to a close, and the beginning of Autumn showed her face through the extra bite in the air. Aziraphale’s expression was set to a steady neutral as he kept his gloved hands in his pockets, only held the door open for three people as he was leaving an antique’s store, and when someone bumped into his shoulders he simply murmured, “Apologies.”

These were the surefire signs that Aziraphale was in a completely terrible mood.

A surprisingly fortuitous drizzle came over the city suddenly, adding a heavy weight to the material of the angel’s coat. Finally he rounded the corner towards his bookshop, and the blonde couldn’t climb up the steps fast enough. He slipped in his key— but the slight tremble in his hands brought on by the cold made the key skid right past the lock. He tried again and had the same thing happen.

“Oh-!” He clicked his tongue in a rather un-angel-like annoyance and with a pointed snap of his fingers simply miracled open the door. He barely noticed his hands automatically locking the door behind him as he stepped inside, too busy shrugging off his gloves and muttering under his breath the grievances of the day. “I mean really—” he said, to no one in particular, as he annoyedly hung up his coat on the rack next to the door. It slid right off, landing flat on the floor with a resounding  _ thump _ .

_ How rude. _

Aziraphale gave the Prodigal Coat a very sharp, very disappointed stare, and it miracled itself back up onto the coat rack, tucking his gloves into the pockets along the way quite nicely.

_ That’s better. _

He only took a step further into the shop when he heard it: the distinct and unmistakable sound of Someone Else. 

That was odd. Aziraphale wasn’t particularly expecting anyone today. The shop itself had been locked, of course, which means the only person it could be was the only other person who had a key. Or one of his superiors, he supposed, who could miracle themselves in and out as they so pleased, but he rather hoped that wasn’t the case. But anyway, after the whole hell-flames-debacle, he doubted they would be coming by, at least for any time in the near future. 

Curiosity pulled the angel in closer towards the back of his shop and up the stairs to the small flat resting above his store, where he could hear the lovely sound of Chopin’s  _ Nocturne op.9 No.2 _ ringing out through his record player, accompanied by a familiar voice letting out a continued string of heavy swearing.

“Don’t you fucking dare— if you get soggy then I have seven different ways to punish you, you insolent slices of-” 

Surely enough, as he reached the landing and peered through his front door, in the archway leading towards his small kitchenette he could see the back of a tall, slender figure, black clothes contrasting heavily with the bright white apron tied around his waist, which Aziraphale rather recognized as his own.

“Don’t make me pop you back in. You stay firm or  _ else _ , I swear to Satan below-”

He was so surprised, and so maddeningly curious, that for the second time in just a handful of minutes the angel barely noticed the door closing behind him as he slowly made his way closer. At the old, creaking floorboards, though, Crowley’s head cocked over his shoulder.

“Angel is that you?” He called out. “I thought you’d be back later than—ah bloody hell— don’t you dare-!” he cut himself off with more scandalous language, and as Aziraphale came closer he could see why; Crowley was wrestling with coating chunks of something in three bowls of something else, and at the same time putting it in a deep, bubbling pan, causing the oil to jump to-and-fro. Grease was splattered over the ‘BLESS THE COOK’ lettering on Aziraphale’s apron and burning the exposed parts of the demon’s skin.

“Are you quite alri-”

The demon hissed again, loudly this time, as he tried to flop in another piece of whatever he was cooking into the frying pan, though the piece was too large and caused another vivacious round of oil to spring from the pot.

“This shit burns— and that’s coming from me! I have pretty high standards when it comes to— well, I guess pretty  _ low  _ standards, is more accurate, all things considered, but— Christ!” More grease sprayed, and the demon jumped back to miss it, but accidentally shook the pan in the same moment and caused more to spray everywhere.

“Here, allow me to help you,” Aziraphale said, quickly pulling an extra apron from a cabinet (this one, he realized as he threw it on, was definitely one that Crowley had given him over the years, as the front letters were instructing the reader to do something much more explicit than ‘bless’ the cook, but Aziraphale didn’t really have time to wonder why Crowley had chosen to wear the other one and not the one he himself had bought), moving to stand at the demon’s side.He caught on rather quickly— grab a slice of the vegetable; dip it in the three bowls: flour, egg, then breadcrumb; and then put it on a paper towel so that Crowley could pick it up and fry it. With an extra set of arms the work went much more smoothly, and soon they could each find the calm in focusing on their own task, Aziraphale coating and Crowley calmly, oddly quietly, watching them fry and flipping them over in due time. 

The small kitchen was covered in splatterings of flour, an almost inane amount of random bowls, and opened bags of ingredients. There was also a rather defiant-looking pile of already-fried vegetables sitting on the other side of Crowley. In all honesty, the angel had never been one to cook much, as he didn’t even  _ need _ to eat and would much rather try human-made food, but after so many years of indulging in haute cuisine he had picked up enough of the basics to know his way around a kitchen. At least, much more than the man next to him did. That begged the question, why  _ was _ Crowley cooking? 

The demon in question would at times watch him from the corner of his eye, but kept on frying without saying a word, now humming softly along to Mr. Frédéric’s music. 

Aziraphale hadn’t even expected he’d be at the shop tonight. Actually, with the huff he came in with, the angel had expected to throw his things inside, grab a couple of his favorite bottles of Cabernet, and pay a visit over at Crowley’s for the night to get positively sloshed together.

Ever since the  _ after _ — after the supposed end of the world, after he stayed that first night at Crowley’s, after their respective trials and subsequently being left relatively alone— they had been spending quite a bit more time together, and it was in the soft ways that Aziraphale liked best. The long nights of contact, and warmth, and liquor; the bookshelf they now kept at Crowley’s apartment; the heating blankets and extra pillows they kept on the bookstore couch for the oncoming cold— pieces of themselves scattered across each other’s lives. It made Aziraphale feel like he could physically start  _ glowing _ at the warm joy he felt to see their material world piece together, the way Crowley had always already had a piece of himself burrowed in Aziraphale’s heart. 

(That is to say, if he didn’t own the entirety of the angel’s heart already, corporeal or otherwise, which was honestly quite likely the case).

Aziraphale had given Crowley the second key to the bookshop when he first opened it— it was something of a bold move, even back then, considering how often Aziraphale’s superiors liked to  _ pop in _ with no notice, but the two of them did spend an awful lot of time together. And anyway, he had justified to himself then, if Crowley could just pop the door open with his own demonic magic (though Aziraphale came to realize the demon never, ever did that without the angel inviting him in), he might as well let him do it normally anyway.

A few times over the years Crowley would slip in while the shop was open and Aziraphale was distracted in politely trying to convince his customers that they didn’t, in fact, want to buy his first edition Wildes, and the demon would simply take a warm nap on a cold day in his back room’s couch. But today was the first day that Crowley really came in and  _ did _ something in Aziraphale’s flat without him being aware of it. Something in the genuine comfort of it, in Crowley finally using the key Aziraphale had given him, made the angel’s heart glow just a bit fonder.

Even still, the curiosity burned in his chest like stubborn embers, refusing to be doused.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, voice containing just a trace of teasing, though his eyes remained obstinately on the vegetables he was dipping. “Considering I did come in and rescue this culinary endeavor, I feel like I should know what it is we’re making.”

“Oh, come on, now. You’re clever enough that you already know,” Crowley mimicked his tone, though there was an undeniable grin twitching at his lips.

Aziraphale looked back at the ingredients at hand, and this time focused on them. The vegetable slices he was dipping were mainly eggplant, there was bubbling frying-oil that was happily splashing at Crowley, and over their shoulders, Aziraphale could see jars of tomato sauce. He peaked around, looking for the missing ingredient, and as if reading his mind, Crowley said without looking up from his pan, “The mozzarella is in the fridge. Didn’t want to leave it out too long. Nasty bugger, food sickness.”

“Parmigiani di Melanzane,” Aziraphale couldn’t help identifying in a dreamy voice.

“Mhm,” Crowley said, awkwardly flipping over a slice of eggplant much too quickly, causing another small sizzling burn to splash at his hand. This time he didn’t seem to notice, though. 

“If I may ask, why is it that you’re doing this? Not— not that I don’t appreciate it, of course. I thoroughly enjoy going out to eat with you, but cooking at home, especially  _ your _ cooking is such a rare treat, I mean, I think the only other time I’ve had your cooking was back in Italy in the Renaissance— well, not that that matters, but I simply wanted to ask— why now?”

There was a slightly, terribly fond smile just creeping over Crowley’s lips at the angel’s rant, but Crowley cleared his throat and schooled his face to be relatively neutral. Still, his shrug was far too calculated to be entirely genuine, and there was just the slightest twitch of sheepishness tugging at his eyebrows. Crowley had  _ never _ been easy to read, but with his glasses off it was just a bit easier. Or maybe, after 6,000 years and an end of the world or two later, the demon was finally being a bit more open. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled. “You were going on last week about how long it’s been since you’ve had home-made cooking or whatnot, and then I saw this recipe in the paper yesterday, and I thought it would give me something to do while you were out and about all day. You’re always dreadfully busy, you know.”

Aziraphale could have mentioned that he had invited Crowley to come along to his daily tasks, the way he almost always had, and that Crowley had politely declined under the pretense of some mysterious, pressing matters, so there was no way this cooking endeavor could be chalked off to simply boredom, but Aziraphale decided to let him have this one. 

The demon of his affection brought up one hand to scratch at the red-brown locks of hair at the nape of his neck. “Er— Also, I wasn’t sure what kind of salsa or spiciness you were in the mood for, so I bought a couple different kinds of tomato sauce.” Aziraphale looked skeptically over his shoulder again, to the small army of jars sitting around his counters. “Okay, well,” Crowley added. “Not a couple. About 14. We can, er, drizzle them over at the end, or dip it or something.”

Aziraphale could feel a smile wide like dawn break over his lips. He couldn’t help it— for someone who claimed to abhor the word, the man next to him was very  _ very  _ bad at not being nice. “Oh, Crowley— thank you. This is very kind of you.”

Crowley glanced over, but then quickly away again, almost dropping one of the eggplant slices in the process. Aziraphale noticed again that the demon didn’t have his sunglasses on, and not for the first time he had an inkling of suspicion as to one of the reasons he always wore them— his natural golden eyes were actually very expressive. He was sure that was not something Crowley very much appreciated, whether it was as a demon or otherwise. At the moment, though, the demon simply mumbled something and kept on with his cooking.

Time passed in contented silence, Chopin waxing a lilting melody between them. The evening sunset shone through the soft brown blinds against the windows, casting a gentle, blazing glow in the coziness of the kitchenette around them. Crowley noticeably had stopped threatening his food, though sometimes the angel still caught him glaring at a particularly soggy piece of already-fried eggplant here and there. 

Finally, with the last slice double-dipped, breaded, and set down, Aziraphale wiggled his batter-covered fingers. “There we are,” he said, pleased with the work in front of them. He went to wash his hands and started gathering up bowls, bringing them to the sink for a clean.

“Oh no—no, don’t do that, angel,” Crowley called over his shoulder, to where Aziraphale moved further towards the sink. “I started this whole bloody mess,” he gestured vaguely at the grease and flour covered kitchen counters, at the bowls upon bowls of messy things “I’ll clean it up.”

“Don’t be silly, my dear.” Aziraphale had already taken a sponge and took to washing. “You finish up the rest of the dish, and I’ll handle this. It would be such a waste of time to simply let you do everything.” 

The angel could just as easily miracle away all the dishes clean, and honestly it was a small enough miracle that he doubted upstairs would care all too much, but there was something so satisfying about washing dishes. In the rare occasions he did cook for himself, washing everything away felt like a perfect conclusion, with the soapy water gliding over his hands and making him feel impossibly  _ human _ if only for a moment. And to do it now, as Crowley cooked beside him, his sharp angles relaxed and his voice humming along to the ongoing  _ Nocturnes _ , the moment felt so very domestic, and comfortable, and  _ real _ . 

Yes, doing the dishes by hand would be just fine.

More time passed in the gentle quiet of their kitchen, ( _ his _ kitchen, he almost corrected themselves, but for quite some time he had realized home wouldn’t be home without Crowley, and it was most definitely  _ theirs _ ), and soon Crowley was checking over the recipe he had clipped from some morning paper, muttering to himself as he retrieved the mozzarella from the refrigerator, layered fried eggplant under tomato sauce and cheese, and repeated the process to the top of the baking pan. A few times, as Aziraphale happily scrubbed away at a particularly stubborn spot of grease, he had to make an active effort to  _ ignore _ comments Crowley made about the ‘old fashioned’ kitchen that had ‘no bloody dishwasher, of  _ course _ ,’ and only a ‘damn tiny’ oven. 

Rude.

In another moment Aziraphale swore he could just make out Crowley mumbling some threat to the dish as he put it in the oven to bake, but Aziraphale decided to grant him the benefit of the doubt and not comment on it. 

Seemingly done with his tasks for now, Crowley leaned against the counter, all cat-like with his long limbs and slow, elegant movements. He could feel Crowley’s gaze flush on him, could feel the other studying him, and most tediously could feel a blush on his cheeks rising against his will. He turned the water in the sink warmer so as to have a reason to excuse the reaction away. A few moments that Aziraphale didn’t quite have the concentration to gage the length of passed, and he was about to ask why Crowley was  _ staring _ so much with those penetrating serpentine eyes of his when the demon beat him to it.

“Are you alright, angel?” His voice was surprisingly soft, and it caught Aziraphale almost entirely off-guard.

“I— yes of course, whatever do you mean?”

Crowley looked away, fingers drumming against the counter to the tune of the piano. “‘Dunno,” he gave that shrug again. “You seemed a bit tense when you came in.”

Aziraphale nearly dropped the bowl he was washing, but luckily at the last second he caught it. Unluckily, what he let go of to catch said bowl was a rather sharp knife, and it cut a rather long slice along three of his fingers. This led to him dropping the bowl anyway, of course, as his luck today would have it.

“Oh  _ lord,”  _ he swore, though his voice didn’t raise too much, body automatically grabbing at his fingers with the other hand. Really, corporeal forms could be such a terrible  _ bother  _ sometimes. 

Crowley was on him in an instant, tall figure leaning over him, all taut and alert. The hand that grabbed at Aziraphale’s arm to inspect the cut, though, was surprisingly gentle. Or rather,  _ unsurprisingly _ . Still, Aziraphale couldn’t help but blink, suddenly dumbfounded at their proximity.

“Long, but not deep,” Crowley was murmuring, but Aziraphale could no longer feel the sting, only able to focus on the proximity of Crowley’s face. He had the  _ longest _ eyelashes, the bastard. 

The bastard who was, for all intents and purposes, searching for some bandages, then upon finding them was standing just as maddeningly close as before, wrapping each of Aziraphale’s fingers individually and mumbling for all the world like a mother-hen about how ‘clumsy’ Aziraphale was sometimes and how he was ‘going to discorporate’ Crowley through ‘cardiac arrest’ at some point soon. 

All he could focus on was how close Crowley’s limps were as he hunched over the cut. 

Suddenly Aziraphale’s uninjured hand was against Crowley’s jaw, thumb tracing against his cheek. He could feel Crowley falter, hands squeezing accidentally against the cut, but again Aziraphale’s senses couldn’t bring themselves to notice the sting.

“Did you know, dear,” he heard himself murmuring, and suddenly Crowley’s eyes looked up to meet his, almost wide-eyed, searching and full of an array of emotions Aziraphale couldn’t quite place. The demon’s cheeks were warm beneath his hand. “That you have some flour on your cheek?”

“I-Is that so?” Crowley replied in a hushed, resonating tone.

Aziraphale nodded, minutely, and brushed away at the flour. Even with it gone, though, he didn’t move away— he simply couldn’t stop staring at Crowley’s lips. From this close, he could see the scabs, the slight scarring that came from always biting at them.

“Is that all?” The demon asked, voice low, almost like silk.

Aziraphale did love silk.

“Not quite,” he almost said, but he didn’t get the chance. He wasn’t sure who moved first— most likely it was both of them, because it was always both of them, wasn’t it? Orbiting like the celestial beings they were made to be, unable to fight the gravity between them, no longer needing to— but suddenly their lips were molding together, the softness of a spring breeze, the reverence of a thirsty man stumbling upon an oasis, the dichotomy of rough-gentleness that was so particularly and irreplicably  _ Crowley’s.  _

The demon’s fingers were tilting Aziraphale’s chin up, and while the angel’s injured hand scrunched up in black fabric above the apron to pull him closer, the other one was still tracing soft patterns against the mark next to his ear. Crowley let out a little groan, lithe arm coiling around Aziraphale’s waist and bringing him closer.

It was so easy to lose himself in Crowley, his hereditary enemy— in the arching of his eyebrows above his glasses, in the vehemently-denied acts of kindness he was always performing, in the soft, thrumming ache of his hands against his skin— that at first, it had terrified him; it was the strongest force he had ever known, and it could tear them apart. It could tear Crowley away forever.

In the after, though, the  _ after _ of new beginnings, the _ after _ of old endings, of continued stories, Aziraphale had realized it was actually a small piece in the strongest force anyone had ever known: love. And nothing could sever that.

He brought one of his hands down to trace down the demon’s neck, against his incredibly-human pulse, down to his shoulder, when a rather obnoxiously loud  _ BEEP BEEP BEEP,  _ rang through the apartment, followed by Crowley’s phone alarm blasting  _ I’m Waiting for the Man.  _

Bebop.

They broke apart on instinct, just a fraction of an inch, but even so close Aziraphale again couldn’t make out the mutterings of the man in front of him— only that he sounded very,  _ very _ annoyed. Crowley lifted his fingers, about to snap away whatever was causing the distraction, when Aziraphale cried out ‘No!’ and his hand shot out to stop it.

Crowley looked at him like he was out of his mind, and maybe he was.

“You spent a whole late-afternoon making this wonderful meal, you will not be snapping away all your hard work on an instinct!”

For a few seconds the demon simply continued to stare at him like he was mad, and then with more barely-intelligible grumbling went to go check on the ‘bloody’ oven. Aziraphale fixed the cuffs of his sleeve, finished wrapping the rest of his fingers, and made quick work of the last dirty dishes as Crowley set the table. 

It didn’t go unnoticed that Crowley took the time to scoop out a hefty helping of each different type of sauce into different bowls— actually, those bowls look quite new, ones that he didn’t recognize from his flat’s stock. No, not new… they looked like the antique china bowls that Aziraphale had off-handedly pointed out to Crowley last week. The ones he had gone back alone to get today and had been quite dismayed to find that, on top of an earlier otherwise also dreary day, someone had bought the last set before he could. 

His heart stuttered (an  _ odd _ human phenomenon indeed), and he couldn’t help staring at Crowley, lips parted and pulse hammering a delicate, erratic melody, at odds with Chopin. 

Crowley glanced up from where he was wrestling to get a stubborn glop of sauce off a spoon, and the angel could swear the faintest blush spread across his high cheekbones. Crowley simply glanced back down at his task and mumbled, any bite to his words canceled out by the overwhelming affection and embarrassment in his voice: “Oh, shut up.”

In no time at all they had set away their aprons, sitting at Aziraphale’s modest but sturdy, stylish dining table. Aziraphale simply couldn’t help  _ beaming _ all the while, as he serves the two of them whine and Crowley sets the food on their plates. 

Crowley now, as always, was pretending not to be as intent as he really is in watching Aziraphale eat. The angel, eyes slipping shut, scoops up the first bite on his fork, carefully takes it in his mouth, and lets out a happy little groan at the taste, the texture. He quickly takes another, causing Crowley to chuckle, and Aziraphale tries not to look  _ too _ smug at the blush that was prominent against the tips of the other’s ears.

“Oh, this is absolutely  _ delicious _ .” He notices rather suddenly that Crowley forgot to serve himself. “You absolutely have to try this— it was your hardwork after all.” 

His black-clad shoulders shrugged. “I’m not that hungry, honestly.”  
“Oh, nonsense. Come, dear, take a bite.” Aziraphale holds out another forkful. He can see Crowley’s adam’s apple bob as he swallowed (Aziraphale could _never_ get over the human languages that called it that, it was possibly one of his favorite words, and one he found served as an endless source to tease the former-serpent with). Cheeks brightening to a deep pink, finally Crowley inches forward and takes a bite from Aziraphale’s fork. Of course, he has to make dead eye-contact with Aziraphale the entire time, causing the angel’s own cheeks to heat up. But the look of genuine pride that momentarily crosses over the other’s features makes it entirely worth it.

“I’ll admit, that isn’t entirely inedible.” Aziraphale shoots him a long-suffering look, to which Crowley simply responds with a cheeky grin. The demon finishes chewing, but instead of leaning back he actually serves himself a portion, as well as a helping of the various spiciest sauces. 

Aziraphale goes to take another bite, when suddenly his head snaps up.

“Oh!” He cries, causing Crowley to start in front of him. “My sincerest apologies, old chap, now where are my manners?” He all but scrambles for his untouched wine glass. “To think, I ate the food you spent time making before propperly toasting you! You’d think I was raised amongst  _ wolves,  _ having never had proper dinner company before…”

Crowley simply chuckled, fondness rendering all of his edges soft, all of his lines calm. With a graceful flick of his wrist he brought up his own wine glass. 

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

They both took a long, gratifying taste of the wine. He was about to make a comment on how Crowley had picked the perfect wine to compliment the food, when the other spoke first. 

“Aziraphale.” His tone was soft again, but Aziraphale didn’t miss the seriousness laced through it. “Are you sure you’re alright?” He echoed back his question from earlier.

“Yes I—” Aziraphale set his fork down, staring into the contents of his wine glass. For a moment he could see the patterns of galaxies in the deep, burgundy liquid, ever-shifting. He swirled it around, fingers delicately wrapped around the stem of the glass, and let himself watch as the whirlpool of entropy cleared whatever he previously saw. When he looked up at Crowley, every ounce of remaining tension and stress melted away. His expression felt light, open, and— if he dared admit— positively joyous. He noticed how Crowley’s gaze flicked from his eyes to his lips, eyes remaining half-lidded as if the pure affection of the moment rendered them too heavy to keep entirely up. Maybe his expressions had only become much more open recently— or maybe they had always been just a bit more open when it was just the two of them.

“It’s the strangest thing,” Aziraphale said, wonder coloring his voice. “I remember having had a rather foul day, and coming home in an absolute tizzy… and now, for the life of me, I can’t remember whatever for.” Crowley smiled to himself, looking down to take another bite of the Parmigiani, but Aziraphale’s hand reached out to catch his before the demon could. 

Crowley looked up at him in surprise. The warmth on Aziraphale’s face travelled down his neck, making his collar feel stiff, but he refused to break eye contact as he spoke, ever softly. “And that’s— entirely because of you, my dear. Thank you.”

The demon’s throat bobbed again, and for a moment Crowley could only cough and look away, another shade of red crawling against his ears. He mumbled something along the lines of “‘s my pleasure,” causing Aziraphale to look at him with a benign smile.

Crowley took another sip of wine. “Eat your food,” he said. “Don’t let it get cold after all our work.” 

Aziraphale did just that, and finally Crowley’s eyes slid back to his. They were impossibly tender, and really they were much,  _ much _ more open without the sunglasses. Without rules, or punishment. Without sides.

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to bake today, and of course started thinking about the domestic fluff Zira & Crowley deserved. Then I thought about that time my friend and I made the dish mentioned above, and how she said it was so much easier to make with more than one person; then came this idea. Hope you like it, check out my #mixtape for these two if that interests you. The title is rather interesting. https://avengured.tumblr.com/post/185567592111/playlist-some-tracks-somethin


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